The case for the 2003 Iraq WarNot the active stockpiles or reconstituted nuclear programme presented at the UN. Iraq retained expertise and unresolved disarmament questions, but those were not the same as a current arsenal.
Read the X-Ray →The 2018-2019 U.S.-China trade warMostly U.S. importers at the border, although the policy also reduced targeted imports and benefited some protected producers.
Read the X-Ray →The post-World War I settlementIt helped create grievances and constraints that Hitler exploited, but later economic collapse, political choices, ideology, and deliberate aggression made the path to war contingent rather than inevitable.
Read the X-Ray →The 1973-1974 oil shockIt was a major shock that raised costs and weakened output, but inflation had begun earlier and persistence also reflected policy, expectations, productivity, food prices, and later energy shocks.
Read the X-Ray →The Great DepressionIt damaged trade and deepened the downturn, but the Depression began before the tariff and became catastrophic through banking panics, monetary contraction, deflation, debt, and the gold standard.
Read the X-Ray →The 2016 Brexit referendumNot as an actual net weekly payment. The headline used a gross assessment before the rebate and ignored money returning to the UK, so the full amount was never freely available to redirect.
Read the X-Ray →The Gulf of Tonkin ResolutionThe 2 August attack occurred, but the reported 4 August attack did not. Treating both as confirmed created a much clearer case for urgent, broad escalation than the evidence supported.
Read the X-Ray →The subprime mortgage crisisTheir defaults helped trigger losses, but securitisation, leverage, ratings, opaque exposures, runnable funding, and regulatory failures turned mortgage risk into a global systemic crisis.
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